Tuesday, May 28, 2013

I'm going to blink and I'll be 40, 50, 60. My, how it flies. I am thirty-three and a half years old and I feel as though already I have lived five lives, yet time runs like water through my hands. I don't want to die, am I allowed to say that? I whisper it in my sleep, in the dark, with the young breeze coming in through the window. After I have clicked off my tiny reading flashlight and turned over to sleep. I don't want to die and I don't want you to die or you or you... but I don't want to live forever either.

In a hundred years all of us, every single one of us (well, almost), will be gone. Every living human breath will have passed on. I am forever startled by this fact. I suppose we all are. I like to think about who will live here, in my home, in twenty years? Another young couple with a baby, having a baby, planning a wedding, getting married or married or not or just young, or perhaps an old woman will wash her dishes in the porcelain sink and stand where my feet stand, looking up over the top of the neighbor's house at the triangle of sky. Or, after turning out the light, looking out to find the moon. Will she sit before the window and watch the tree turn from green to gold, from bare to green again? Will she too be amazed by the quickness of the changing seasons? Is she here already? Pacing the short span of the hallway, looking in on my sleeping loves, sitting with me for morning coffee. And what if I am her and she is me? But I never stay too long in one place, it's bad for the soul. Though I return.

Only the fluidity of cycles makes sense to me. I can feel it in my bones. Will my God fault be for believing I have lived many lives, and more still I have to live? There is no part of the soul or spirit that lays itself dormant, basking in splendor. There is only the rush of joy, pure like a child's hope, that fills and spews and empties in a hush of relief. It is safe to say I don't know. And I will tell you too, I believe the truth of my own heart.

Lately, I have felt quiet, pensive, and internal. Perhaps I am resting, readying myself for the next journey, or healing, or catching up with myself. I don't feel in a chit-chat kind of mood and yet I miss women. I miss the way they smell, the glory of their hair, the secrets they keep and tell. I miss the way they make me tea and clean the dishes, and tell me what to wear. I miss long leisurely chats over coffee, and walking with them. There are truly so many women I have loved and lived beside in this life. And we have told each other story upon story, because stories our the secret magic of women.

I also miss the ocean. I miss walking alone, restless at night, not worrying if my son is awake or if my husband is too tired or if I'll be too tried in the morning. I miss the smell of the forest and I miss reading for hours until my brain is so fully overloaded I must sleep. Oh yes, but, the truth is, I love to miss. I love to long and recall, to remember and retell.

The long days of rain have brought eager growth. Love flows from my heart and not my mouth.

About Me

I once heard a poet speak of the mouth of the river -- a place I sensed was full and rushing with both glee and the sorrow that makes us seek higher thought through which we might be sustained in this wilderness of passing through. Welcome. Please write me here often.
I am a writer, teacher, and mother living in Vermont.